


The Rules of Time Travel

by stellarel



Series: Thirteen fanzine prompt week stuff [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Sad Thirteenth Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarel/pseuds/stellarel
Summary: Yaz just wants to help people.But sometimes, the rules of time travel say no.Written for the Thirteen fanzine prompt week! Today's prompt was "It's not always black and white."
Series: Thirteen fanzine prompt week stuff [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1800295
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	The Rules of Time Travel

Yaz is sitting on one of the hexagonal steps in the console room, watching silently as the Doctor weeds through distress signals. 

The system didn’t make much sense to Yaz - the messy circles and quiet mechanical sounds the TARDIS seemed to communicate with didn’t really translate to her human brain, but it seemed like the Doctor was archiving them according to urgency. This, Yaz understood - she'd been through triage training as a part of her job. She knew that sometimes you just had to prioritize who you helped first. 

After watching her for a moment, Yaz leans to one of the glowing pillars and decides to finally open her mouth about the one thing she’d been wondering about ever since she learned about time travel.

"Everywhere we go, you help people." Yaz says, as more of a statement than anything else. The Doctor doesn't react much - doesn't respond, doesn't turn to look at her. But Yaz continues, fairly sure she'd heard her anyways.

"Everywhere we go, there's some catastrophe or another, waiting to happen. Distress call or not, there's always distress."

The Doctor takes a deep breath. She _could_ explain to Yaz that that was mostly the TARDIS just taking the Doctor wherever she needed to be whether she intended to be there or not. But she didn't really feel like having that conversation right now.

She didn't feel like having a conversation right now, period - looking through distress signals, there were always some she just _couldn't_ respond to, for some reason or another, and it always broke her hearts a little. Fixed points. Crossed timelines. Past attempts that ended in failure. Sometimes, she just _couldn’t_ help.

And she knew she had been a little snappy recently, with her fam, and maybe not talking at all felt like a shortcut to making sure she didn't say the wrong thing.

"So there seems to be, yes." She finally answers, mostly just to not come off as rude. She liked Yaz, and didn't want to hurt her feelings by failing to respond correctly to the social cues of conversation. It's a non-answer, really, but it's an answer fit for a non-question.

"And we travel in time." Yaz continues, and at this point, the Doctor is starting to get an uncomfortable creeping feeling at the back of her neck, fearing that she knows where this is going. 

It had happened before.

"Yes, I'm quite aware of that." She forces some good-natured sarcasm into her voice, hoping that the conversation wouldn't turn grim in the next few seconds.

"So why don't we ever go fix some of the terrible things in the past? Save some of the innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Stop Hitler, save the people on the Titanic, evacuate Hiroshima before the bomb hits?"

The Doctor takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. 

Yaz was smart. And kind. And just wanted to help people.

But she was just a human, and this meant she couldn't see time the same way the Doctor did, didn't understand the intricate laws of causality the same way. She didn't know the rules. 

"Before Pompeii, the Romans didn't have a word for volcano." The Doctor finally says, not knowing where to start with the explanation that would, she feared, soon border on an argument.

"So?"

"So, they didn't know that was something that could _happen_ before that. And then one day, it happened, and they learned. And it started a whole chain of events, and it's a part of history now."

The Doctor made the very deliberate choice of not mentioning that she had been a very crucial part of those events happening. That was not a memory she wanted to visit right now - she had enough heavy decisions pressing on her hearts in this body now, she didn't need to add on the past tragedies as well.

"All those terrible things that happened, _happened_ , and I wasn't there to stop them the first time over, so I can't go there now. It's just not how it works." She explains, her voice level and her hearts heavy.

There had been times she had wondered. If she could stop all the misery, all the past disasters, all the innocent deaths and murders. Just throw caution to the wind and save _everyone_. She would have the time, and the equipment. But that would have an unpredictable effect on the present, and she didn't want to gamble with the lives of people she - 

The Doctor licks her lips and takes another deep breath, trying to pretend that it made her feel calmer. "I need to stick within the laws of causality, Yaz. I can't just go and do whatever I want, there are rules to time travel."

Yaz tilts her head, still holding onto some of the hope, some of the optimism. "When have you ever followed a single rule in your life, Doctor?"

_When it mattered._

_When it meant protecting people._

_When it means protecting you._

The Doctor finally turns to look at her, and for a terrible moment, Yaz almost wishes she hadn't. Her usually bright eyes look so _tired_ , now, so full of pain, and so, so old, and it makes something tighten inside Yaz's rib cage.

"Think about it." The Doctor says, in a tired, defeated voice. "If we go back in time now, and stop Hitler before he becomes the Hitler you know, we get him into art school and he becomes a painter, instead, think about what that would mean. Yes, a lot of innocent people won't die or live in constant terror, there’s a lot less fear and pain and death in the universe, but now the Hitler you learned about in school doesn't exist. He never did any of those terrible things. And yes, that might seem like a good thing, but think about what it would change." 

A terrible sense of defeat starts to seep into Yaz's lungs.

"But-" She starts, wanting to argue but not quite knowing what to say. The Doctor gives her a sad, understanding look.

This wasn't the first time she'd had this conversation.

"If we did that, _everything_ would change. Now we don't have a reason to go back in time. Now, the future is suddenly entirely different. There's no telling what would happen if we ripped apart the threads of cause and effect like that." The Doctor explains with a wave of her hand. "There are just some things that are too big to change. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. Sometimes, terrible things happen, and they cause other things to happen, and I can't meddle with that even if it would mean saving someone who didn't deserve to die." 

The Doctor knows the desperation, the frustration, is starting to bleed into her voice, but she didn't quite know how to stop it from doing that. "It's not always just good and bad, black and white. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and we can't always stop it. And we especially can't reverse it."

She looks at Yaz, eyes sad. 

The Doctor did her best to help. To save anyone she could. 

But sometimes, she just couldn’t. 


End file.
